Heroborn
by Lyaksandra
Summary: What does it take for someone who stands at the precipice of change, to finally take that leap of faith and claim their destiny?


John Connor runs. He runs and bullets fly by him so close that he can almost feel their heat on his skin.

The ruined buildings of New York City seem so close now. He just has some hundreds of feet to go, and he will be able to regain some of his bearings while under the cover of the labyrinthine remains of the city. If anything, it still is better than running through the forest like a scared deer.

As a fallen trunk comes into view he takes a fall, and with the help of fallen leaves slides under it without losing much momentum. Once he sees the trunk safely past him, John breaks the slide and keeps on running. Immediately, more bullets fly by him, it seems that Cameron will not let the slightest opportunity go. Whatever little window of opportunity he gives, she instantly exploits.

John sees a prospect for a break in a large group of boulders to his left, thus he quickly changes direction and sprints at top speed. Upon reaching the rocks, he jumps over them and turns immediately to return some fire, forcing Cameron to take cover behind a tree. He riddles the trunk with bullets sporadically while trying to make out the best route into the city.

While reloading, he takes a quick peek, and his heart falters. The cold stare from Cameron's deadly focus on the task at hand nearly chills his blood. It's not just that though. John notices, for the first time that her cerise, always lip-gloss covered lips are slightly curved upwards. She is enjoying this, the hunt, the thrill of having him cornered like an animal. The sick, twisted machine is thoroughly enjoying this. Of course, to anyone else looking at her she might as well have a blank expression on her face, but he knows better. John knows how to read the tiny nuances of Cameron's behavior.

Now with a clear route outlined in his head, John pops out from cover to fire and get some time to start his run for the ruins. With almost overwhelming surprise he realizes Cameron is no longer behind the tree. He frantically looks around to try and find her but it's useless until bullets fly again his way, some of them even reaching their mark, but luckily causing only flesh wounds. He's been flanked and the route he had outlined has been cut. Even in this dire situation, John can't help but admire how intelligent and adaptive Cameron is. If he is to fall, it's a good thing that it will be by her hand. He wouldn't have it any other way.

With no clear route, and the natural pressure one feels when being about to get showered with lead, John breaks for another frenzied sprint to any building close enough to save his skin from an untimely demise.

There's a several story building with an intact base right in front of him as he reaches the crumbling pavement of New York's dilapidated streets. John decides that's where he will make a stand. As he reaches the inside, he keeps on running hastily, quickly sweeping and checking rooms and corridors for additional threats. Once he reaches a side of the edifice overlooking the forest he just left behind, John starts checking the outside from every window. Haste becomes anxiety when he notices she is nowhere to be seen out there. Not even under the infrared view of his visor.

John decides to keep moving inside the building, as he entered first and should have a clear way to the upper floors, whereas Cameron will have to be more cautious. Again, as hastily as possible he makes way to the stairs, sweeping and checking adjacent rooms. He climbs floor after floor until the top one, seeing as nothing has followed him, it's here John decides to take a break and reassess his strategies. Slumping against a wall and checking the area outside the window periodically, he starts re-working how to stop Cameron. He knows she will not stop until he is dead, so a way to stop her permanently is needed. Quite a problem with no way to build a trap, and the fact that she has inhumanly accurate aim.

Suddenly he hears a noise outside. John slides close to the window, and from the corner of his eye tries to see if she's out there. Still nothing, but as soon as he is ready to sit again, he hears another noise. It's clear that the noises are coming from the street level, so he stands up, and risking revealing his position he looks out from the window, trying to identify the source.

A faint rustle comes from behind him, that's when John realizes his mistake. Of course, the noises below had been a decoy. Too late does he try to turn around to open fire and at least go out in a blaze of glory. He barely manages to finish the turn, and as the words, "maximum power" resonate through his ears, his body bends like a ragdoll with a kick to the stomach so strong that he flies out the window to a sure death.

For the shortest moment, before losing sight of his killer, he catches a glint in her eyes. The glint you found in living, elated humans, not in machines. Has it always been there? Is it new? Alas, before he can ponder the meaning of it, John Connor lands on the dirt of the neighboring forest he was trying to escape just minutes ago, his terminated corpse raising with its weight a thick cloud of dust and dry leaves. Then, as if to give more fanfare to his humiliation, an achievement for Cameron pops on the screen.

Letting out a long drawn out huff, John slumps into the couch and lets the controller drop onto the carpeted floor. He steals another look at his gaming companion, and is surprised once again by her smile. Are her teeth showing ever so slightly behind those bountiful, pouty lips? Has she truly enjoyed massacring him again so much? And well, does it even matter as long as she is happy? How he wishes to claim right there and then her exquisite looking lips. So cerise, so glossy, so soft and tender looking.

John manages to stop that line of thought recalling the continuous humiliations he has been suffering throughout the evening.

"So, are you happy now? How many times this makes, fifty?"

Cameron then turns to look at him and announce with solemnity, "Ninety three."

"What?" The youth asks with indignation, and then he sinks further into the couch, frowning and huffing.

The cyborg sees this, and puts her hand on his knee. "I'm sorry for your loss."

He gives a roll of the eyes, and replies, perhaps with more severity than he intended, "Yeah, right. Rub it in."

All this free time, all this normality after securing a future without a genocidal Skynet has brought with it a strange after-effect. John cannot decide if it's good or bad yet, but he has a lot more time to spend around Cameron, and he has started to notice and learn a lot more about her. For example right now, as he responded her attempt at showing sympathy for him with persecution, her eyes wandered for just a fraction of a second to the floor. Her gaze seemed downcast. Then, she immediately recovers and smiles at him. A tender smile, a sweet smile, but that somehow looks sad. A smile that shows she has been hurt, but that at the same time she puts him above herself, before herself, and still tries to push forward and comfort him.

Now he feels like an absolute douchebag.

This strange limbo his mind has been cast into is tearing John apart. After discovering and acknowledging the many quirks that make Cameron human, lovely and approachable in a sense, he still remains unable to close that imaginary gap between them. All of it is driving him slowly mad, sometimes he loses sleep over those thoughts, but he still has doubts and fears. He can't just take that leap of faith, not yet, and who knows if ever. For all the things he has noticed in Cameron, still none feels like an invitation.

John forces his mind to a grinding halt. There's nothing to be gained from going around the same ideas time and again, so he decides to let go for now, and focus on the present. On the fact that he unwillingly hurt someone who tried to show some sympathy for him. Human, animal or machine, kindness should never be paid with backhanded comments. He has to make her forget, lighten up the mood.

In full knowledge of how lousy his social interaction skills are, John decides to go for a playful approach. "You know what? I'm going to delete all your achievements, see how smug you are after that." Having said it, the young man pounces over the cyborg in an attempt to steal the controller from her hands.

Although her face looks impassive, she still moves the controller out of his way in less than a blink. John also notices that her irises are fully visible; her eyes are more open than normal. The young man can't help but feel a tinge of guilty happiness at how cute she acts, worried, scared for her gaming achievements.

They struggle for a while in silence, until Cameron decides to put a definite stop to his threats. "Please stop this, John Connor."

He stops. His heart stops too or at least in this moment it feels that way. Did Cameron just add a slight tone of plea to her voice? Is she emulating, pretending in order to achieve her goals? She is an infiltrator after all. But no. Why change her voice in such a subtle way that might as well be unnoticeable. Right at this thought, John's mind quickly takes a detour and starts racing down a new line of thought.

Unnoticeable to anyone but him. Does Cameron know that he has been looking at her, that his attention has been absorbed by her daily life actions? No, that's impossible, because he's very good at pretending too, at deceiving. His whole life has meant hiding until recently, playing the role of other people, learning how to cheat other's perception.

John is so focused on his ramblings that he fails to notice when his hand loses grip and his arm slides off the couch. This causes his body to tumble and fall flat atop Cameron.

Hips against hips, belly against belly, chest against chest. His mind gets flooded with sensations and the memories of that day months ago in that rundown motel. There is warmth, a supple feeling of tender flesh and in general, the fantastic elation born from feeling a female body beneath him. A female body that feels all too human to ever doubt it could be otherwise.

Suddenly John feels her nose on his cheek, and he turns around without thinking. Her face, Cameron's face, the woman he so desires but dares not reach out to try and claim lies there, at a breath's distance from his own. Seconds extend into minutes and then seemingly into hours. He dares not move and she makes no sign of wanting for him to move.

His lips part slightly; he closes his eyes and lets out a very faint, tremulous sigh. John Connor is ready to make that leap of faith…

No, he is not. John stops his approach, promptly separates himself from Cameron and tries to rise on his arms. Suddenly her arm sneaks behind his head. The strongest yet most delicate fingers he knows are clutching at his nape with the invincible grip of a hydraulic press. Surprised, cornered and scared, John stares into the piercing and unshakeable gaze of Cameron. Her brown irises looking almost black, as if ready to swallow him whole.

She then speaks in the faintest voice John has ever heard from her lips. "Do it."

A whisper that carries into his ears, runs along his body like a magical spark lighting his every cell, and leaves a multitude of goose bumps in its wake. Still, he hesitates. Cameron's grip doesn't lessen in the slightest though, and if anything, she has started to pull him towards her.

"You may not have to become the man who saves the world, John Connor, but I am still waiting for you to become the man I shall love."

In a similar fashion to the strike Cameron gave him in the videogame, she has just delivered another crushing blow through him. John is not a religious person, but he is sure she has just struck at his very soul.

Once upon a time he was hero-born, the man meant to conquer her kind in mortal battle. John Connor now realizes that nothing has changed. With the vengeful Skynet gone. With Cameron's kind no longer looming in the future ready to stalk the land burning every human in plasma fire. Still he is meant to conquer her kind, albeit now the battle is quite different.

John falls down again upon Cameron's face, and presses his lips to hers with an almost crushing force. Her lips are just as soft as he imagined they would be, she is just as willing as he had dreamed she would be, the kiss is perfect. In all its amateurish passion and uncontrolled desire, the kiss is perfect.

As they deepen their kisses and start to embrace each other, all of John's doubts are burned in the fire of a longing that has been repressed for far too much time.

Separating from Cameron for a moment to regain his composure and some breath, John gets ready to let go of his last lifeline. For a moment though, he remains mesmerized by her slightly swollen lips, the memory of their cherry taste, the faint smile that graces them. Then he looks at the pool of brown tresses that frames her face, breathes in the exquisite smell of a field full of fresh wheat and flowers that enthralls him. She smells of the earth, of the sun, so natural that her unnatural nature can easily be forgotten.

"I love you, Cameron."

"I love you too, John Connor."


End file.
